According to a report, Apple is expected to release three new Macs between late spring and summer. The upcoming models are rumored to be the 15-inch MacBook Air, the Mac Pro with Apple chips, and an updated version of the 13-inch MacBook Air. These new devices are believed to feature significant hardware upgrades and improvements in performance.
The codenames for these upcoming devices are J515 for the 15-inch MacBook Air, J180 for the new Mac Pro, and J513 for the updated 13-inch MacBook Air. Apple has not yet confirmed the release dates for these products, but many are eagerly anticipating their arrival.
Updated MacBook Air to arrive this spring-summer
An important unknown factor regarding these upcoming Mac releases is the specific processors they will utilize. according to Mark Gurman’s “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg. What has been confirmed is that the Mac Pro will be equipped with the M2 Ultra processor, which boasts 24 CPU cores, and 76 graphics cores, and has the capability to support at least 192 gigabytes of memory.
However, there is still uncertainty surrounding the processor that will power the new MacBook Air models. If these laptops are launched in a few months with the M2 chip, they will quickly become outdated. Consumers may still be interested in a 15-inch MacBook Air with an M2 chip, but a new M2 13-inch MacBook Air is unlikely to be compelling.
So it’s plausible that Apple is gearing up for at least the new 13-inch model to be an M3 machine. That would make a lot of sense: The M2 chip was always designed as a stopgap processor ahead of the M3, which will mark the first time Apple is moving from 5-nanometer chip process technology to a 3-nanometer design in the Mac.
In the same report, Gurman says that Apple’s 24-inch iMac could get an update earlier than previously anticipated. The new model has entered EVT, or engineering validation testing, which is a late stage in development that involves production testing. While mass manufacturing won’t start for at least three months, this puts a shipment of the model into the second half of 2023, which is earlier than earlier predictions of late 2023 or early 2024.
The new 24-inch iMac is expected to retain the same size and color options as the current model, but with changes to how the stand attaches and the relocation of some internal components. The timing of the update coincides with the launch of Apple’s M3 chips, which could make the iMac one of the first devices to use chips from that generation.
